Kroger in, Kroger out, Qualcomm in

Last week I had been watching and waiting for WalMart to drop.  It wouldn't.  Everybody and their mother says "Buy WalMart", but it has never quite hit the level I wanted it to be at before buying in.  So I look at similar grocery-type staples, and Kroger had just announced their (less than expected) quarterly results.  I figure if I can find the floor on this one, I might get a good yield.

Well, Friday morning I see the inflation report on Drudge, and I surmise that the market will take off.  I pull the trigger on Kroger, and sure enough I made some money by the end of the day.  Over the weekend, and listening to Cramer, I realized a few things.  Kroger is in the most competitive sector out there right now - groceries.  Everyone has a hand in groceries:  WalMart, Target, Amazon, even Kohl's will!!  Add that to the list of grocery stores that already exist.

But that is not what pushed me over the "Sell" edge.  It was the unions.  I am from a big union state, I see what they do to inflation, bottom lines, even new, innovative stores.  Working in tech made me think that unions were just for railroads and truck drivers.  After all, WalMart kept the unions out.  And then I find out that Kroger has unions.  That was enough for me.  I sold bright and early Monday morning with a tiny profit.  I refuse to invest in anything grocery going forward, the margins are too thin!

Meanwhile, the Qualcomm/Broadcom
deal was nixed.  After QCOM flew up out of reach in November when the merger talk started happening, I largely ignored it.  However, when the deal was nixed, QCOM started dropping pretty hard, being on Yahoo's loser list 2 days in a row.  When it stopped falling on Wednesday, and everything else was falling, I realized it hit the bottom and bought 29 shares at 3.9% yield!  So I guess I get to be part of the silicon valley NASDAQ drama as I now have a part of Qualcomm.  I'm glad my other tech company is MasterCard, which will be a solid player against the volatility of Qualcomm and its ilk.  As for now, I have my tech quota (2) so I am done with tech.  Until I fill all of my other quotas, I may take a look at tech again, but if I do it will be a long time from now.

I am glad that my net worth has popped back above what it was at the end of January - the February drop will be forever immortalized in my spreadsheets!  I'm counting down to 5 weeks when I will be making some (positive) financial changes through a hard-earned windfall.  It will still be a few weeks after that before the effects will be seen, but it should help boost my investing and bring me closer to my goals.